1. There is no valid logical inference there. — wonderer1
2. It seems to me that if we want to speak accurately, it would be more realistic to talk about mental events and neurological events, rather than talking about states. — wonderer1
3. Ancient people didn't have the opportunity, to become much better informed, that is available to us now. So what do ancient people have to do with the subject? — wonderer1
Or,1. Mental states are identical to brain states. (a=b)
2. From (1), talk of mental states is the same as talk of brain states.
3. Ancient peoples coherently talked about their mental states. (M)
4. Ancient peoples did not coherently talk about their brain states. (¬B)
5. Therefore, mental states are not identical to brain states (a=b ↔ (M↔B), but ¬B so a≠b).
This is wrong. Ancient peoples talked incessantly (and coherently) about their mental states.
— RogueAI
Begging the question. — Lionino
I think I'm on pretty solid ground asserting that ancient peoples knew full well what a person was talking about when they said "I miss my dead wife" or "There's just been a battle with the Gauls, I'm worried about my son". — RogueAI
Picture two children stranded on a desert island with no education talking coherently about how they feel (i.e., their mental states). Are they talking coherently about brain states or neurological events? No. — RogueAI
The argument makes it sound like you haven't taken into account ancient people's ignorance.
Sound is waves of compressed air. Ancient people currently talked about sounds without talking about compressed air. Therefore sound isn't waves of compressed air?
No, I don't think this holds. — flannel jesus
If "full", "know", and "about" mean what I think they do, which are their conventional meanings in English, you would have a solution for the problem of other minds, but you don't, right? — Lionino
but my argument is not about mental states being reduced to physical states. It's attacking the notion that mental states are identical to brain states. — RogueAI
but my argument is not about mental states being reduced to physical states. It's attacking the notion that mental states are identical to brain states.
— RogueAI
I don't see the distinction — flannel jesus
3. Ancient peoples coherently talked about their mental states.
4. Ancient peoples did not coherently talk about their brain states.
5. Therefore, mental states are not identical to brain states. — RogueAI
1. Mental states are identical to brain states.
2. From (1), talk of mental states is the same as talk of brain states.
3. Ancient peoples coherently talked about their mental states.
4. Ancient peoples did not coherently talk about their brain states. — RogueAI
4. Therefore, ancient peoples coherently talked about their brain states. — Leontiskos
Already in the 4th century BC, Aristotle thought that the heart was the seat of intelligence, while the brain was a cooling mechanism for the blood. He reasoned that humans are more rational than the beasts because, among other reasons, they have a larger brain to cool their hot-bloodedness.
3. Ancient peoples coherently talked about their mental states. — RogueAI
This is absurd — RogueAI
There's nothing about having to solve the problem of other minds asserting that ancient peoples talked meaningfully to each other about how they felt. Of course they did! What could be more obvious? — RogueAI
This is certainly not correct. if we had the capability, I could write down the state of every aspect of my brain over a period of four seconds from a few minutes ago, at whatever level you want. Every single particle, or neuron, or structure, or any combination, or whatever. Among other things, I thought of a joke during those four seconds. Are you going to laugh when you look at all that code? Maybe it wasn't funny. Let's try the four seconds from about a minute later. Are you laughing now? Well, I'm not a professional comedian. Maybe that explains it.1. Mental states are identical to brain states.
2. From (1), talk of mental states is the same as talk of brain states. — RogueAI
Yes.↪Patterner Is "your chair" and "all the atoms that make up your chair, in that exact arrangement" the same thing? — flannel jesus
Not sure if you intended that wording and I'm just reading it wrong. But no, atoms > chair and brain states > mind states are not analogous. For a couple reasons.Are brain states and mind states different things in the same way that your chair is different from the complete arrangement of all the atoms that make up your chair? — flannel jesus
2) As you say, different arrangements of atoms can bring about the same mind state. That means something else is involved, not just arrangements of atoms. — Patterner
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